The problem is not that there are problems. The World changes faster than the people in it. Every since the late 1940’s a single dominant strategy has governed most efforts to reduce the gap between the World’s rich and poor. I call this the Second Wave strategy. This approach starts with the premise that Second Wave societies are the apex of evolutionary progress and that, to solve their problems, all societies must replay the industrial revolution essentially as it happened in the West, Russian, or Japan. Progress consists of moving millions of people out of agriculture and into mass production. It requires urbanization, standardization, and all the rest of the Second Wave package. Development, in brief, involves the faithful imitation of an already successful model. Scores of governments in country after country have, in fact, tried to carry out this game plan. A few, like South Korea or Taiwan, where special conditions prevail, appear to be succeeding in establishing a Second Wave society. However, most such efforts have met with disaster. These failures in one Impoverished country after another have been blamed on a mind-bending multiplicity of reasons. Neo-colonialism. Bad planning. Corruption. Backward religions. Tribalism. Transnational corporations. The CIA. Going to slowly. Going too fast. Yet, whatever the reasons, the grim fact remains that industrialization according to the Second Wave model has flopped far more frequently than it has succeeded. Iran offers the most dramatic case in point. As late as 1975 a tyrannical Shah boasted he would make Iran into the most advanced industrial state in the Middle East by pursuing the Second Wave strategy. “The Shah’s builders,” reported Newsweek, “toiled over a glorious array of mills, dams, railroads, highways, and all the other trimmings of a full-fledged industrial revolution.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

In June 1978 international bankers were still scrambling to lend billions at hair-thin interest rates to the Persian Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, to the Mazadern Textile Company, to Tavanir, the state-owned power utility, to the steel complex at Isfahan and the Iran Aluminum Company, among others. While this buildup was supposedly turning Iran into a “modern” nation, however, corruption ruled Teheran. Conspicuous consumption aggravated the contrast between the rich and poor. Foreign interests—mainly, but not exclusively, American—had a field day. (A German manager in Teheran was paid a third more than he could have earned at home, but his employees worked for one tenth a German worker’s pay-packet.) The urban middle class existed as a tiny island within a sea of misery. Apart from oil, fully two thirds of all the goods produced from the market were consumed in Teheran by one tenth of the country’s population. In the countryside, where income was barely a fifth of that in the city, the rural masses continued to live under revolting and repressive conditions. Nurtured by the West, attempting to apply Second Wave strategy, the millionaires, generals, and hired technocrats who ran the Teheran government conceived of development as a basically economic process. If only the dollar signs were got right–religion, culture, family life, sexual roles—all these would take care of themselves. Cultural authenticity meant little because, steeped in indust-reality, they saw the World as increasingly standardized rather than moving toward diversity. Resistance to Western ideas was simply dismissed as “backward” by a cabinet 90 percent of whose members had been educated at Harvard, Berkeley, or European universities. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

Despite certain unique circumstances—like the combustive mixture of oil and Islam—much of what happened in Iran was common to other countries pursuing the Second Wave strategy. With some variation, much the same might be said of dozens of other poverty-stricken societies from Asia and Africa to Latin America. The collapse of the Shah’s regime in Teheran has sparked a widespread debate in other capitals from Manila to Mexico City. One frequently asked question has to do with the pace of change. Was the pace too accelerated? Did the Iranians suffer from future shock? Even with oil revenues, can governments create a large enough middle class rapidly enough to avoid revolutionary upheaval? However, the Iranian tragedy and the substitution of an equally repressive theocracy for the Shah’s regime compel us to question the very root premises of the Second Wave strategy. Is classical industrialization the only path to progress? And when industrial civilization itself is caught in its terminal agonies, does it make any sense to imitate the industrial model at a time? So long as the Second Wave nations remained “successful”—stable, rich, and getting richer—it was easy to look upon them as a model for the rest of the World. By the late 1960’s, however, the general crisis of industrialism has exploded. Strikes, blackouts, breakdowns, crime, and psychological distress spread throughout the Second Wave World. Magazines did cover pieces on “why nothing works anymore.” Energy and family systems shook. Value systems and urban structures crumbled. Pollution, corruption, inflation, alienation, loneliness, racism, bureaucratism, divorce, mindless consumerism, all came under savage attack. Economists warned of the possibility of a total collapse of the financial system. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

A global environmental movement, meanwhile, warned that pollution, energy, and resource limits might soon make it impossible for even the existing Second Wave nations to continue normal operations. Beyond this, it was pointed out, even if the Second Wave strategy did, miraculously, work in the poor nations, it would turn the entire planet into a single giant factory and wreak ecological havoc. Gloom descended on the richest nations as the general crisis of industrialism deepened. And if the Second Wave strategy could not work, suddenly millions around the World asked themselves why anyone would want to emulate a civilization that was itself in the throes of such violent disintegration. Another startling development also undermined the belief that the Second Wave strategy was the only path from rags to riches. Always implicit in this strategy was the assumption that “first you ‘develop,’ then you grow rich”—that affluence was the result of hard work, thrift, the Protestant Ethic, and a long process of economic and social transformation. However, the OPEC embargo and the sudden flood of petro-dollars into the Middle East stood this Calvinist notion on its pointed head. Within mere months unexpected billions spewed, splashed, and spumed into Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and other Arab countries, and the World saw seemingly limitless wealth preceding, rather than following, transformation. In the Middle East, it was the money that produced the drive to “develop,” rather than “development” that produced the money. Nothing like that, on so vast a scale, had ever happened before. Meanwhile, competition among the rich nations themselves was heating up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

With South Korean steel being used at California construction sites, television sets from Taiwan being marketed in Europe, tractors from India being sold in the Middle East and China emerging dramatically as a major potential industrial force, concern is mounting over how far developing economies will undercut established industries in the advanced nations of Japan, the United States of America and Europe. Striking French steelworkers, as one might expect, put it more colourfully. They called for an end to “the massacre of industry” and protesters occupied the Eiffel Tower. In one after another of the older industrial nations, Second Wave industries and their political allies attacked the “export of jobs” and policies that spread industrialization to the poorer countries. In short, doubts mushroom on all sides as to whether the much-trumpeted Second Wave strategy could—or even should—work. Once public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they prefer to serve with their wallet rather than with their person, the state is already near its ruin. It is necessary to march off to battle? They pay mercenary troops and stay at home. Is it necessary to go to the council? They name deputies and stay at home. By dint of laziness and money, they finally have soldiers to enslave the country and representatives to sell it. The hustle and bustle of commerce and the arts, the avid interest in profits, softness and the love of amenities: these are what change personal services into money. A person gives up part of one’s profit in order to increase it at leisure. Give money and soon you will be in chains. The word finance is a slave word. It is unknown in the city. In a truly free state, the citizens do everything with their own hands and nothing with their money. Far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would pay to fulfill them themselves. Far be it from me to be sharing commonly held ideas. I believe that forced labour is less opposed to liberty than taxes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

The better a state is constituted, the more public business takes precedence over private business in the minds of the citizens. There even is far less private business, since, with the sum of common happiness providing a more considerable portion of each individual’s happiness, less remains for one to look for through private efforts. In a well run city everyone flies to the assemblies; under a bad government no one wants to take a step to get to them, since no one takes an interest in what happens there, for it is predictable that the general will will not predominate, and in the end domestic concerns absorb everything. Good laws lead to making better laws; bad laws bring about worse ones. Once someone says what do I care? about the affairs of state, the state should be considered lost. The cooling off of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the largeness of states, conquests, the abuse of government: these have suggested the route of using deputies or representatives of the people in the nation’s assemblies. It is what in certain countries is called the third estate. Thus the private interest of two orders is given first and second place; the public interest is given merely third place. Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason that it cannot be alienated. It consists essentially in the general will, and the will does not allow of being represented. It is either itself or something else; there is nothing in between. The deputies of the people, therefore, neither are nor can be its representatives; they are merely its agents. They cannot conclude anything definitively. Any law that the populace has not ratified in person is null; it is not a law at all. The English people believes itself to be free. It is greatly mistake; it is free only during the election of the members of Parliament. Once they are elected, the populace is enslaved; it is nothing. The use the English people makes of that freedom in the brief moments of its liberty certainly warrants their losing it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

The idea of representatives is modern. It comes to us from feudal government, that iniquitous and absurd government in which the human race is degraded and the name of humans is in dishonour. In the ancient republics and even in monarchies, the people never had representatives. The word itself was unknown. It is quite remarkable that in Rome where the tribunes were so sacred, no one even imagined that they could usurp the functions of the people, and that in the midst of such a great multitude, they never tried to pass a single plebiscite on their own authority. However, we can size up the difficulties that were sometimes caused by the crowd by what took place in the time of the Gracchi, when part of the citizenry voted from the rooftops. Where right and liberty are everything, inconveniences are nothing. In the care of this wise people, everything was handled correctly. It allowed its lictors to do what its tribunes would not have dared to do. It has no fear that its lictors would want to represent it. However, to explain how the tribunes sometimes represented, it is enough to conceive how the government represents the sovereign. Since the law is merely the declaration of the general will, it is clear that the people cannot be represented in the legislative power. However, it can and should be represented in the executive power, which is merely force applied to the law. This demonstrates that, on close examination, very few nations would be found to have laws. Be that as it may, it is certain that, since they have no share in executive power, the tribunes could never represent the Roman people by the rights of their office, but only by usurping those of the senate. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

Among the Greeks, whatever the populace had to do, it did by itself. It was constantly assembled at the public square. It inhabited a mild climate; it was not greedy; its slaves did the work; its chief item of business was its liberty. No longer having the same advantages, how are the same right to be preserved? Your harsher climates cause you to have more needs. (To adopt in cold countries the luxury and softness of the Eastern cultures is to desire to be given their chains; it is submitting to these with even greater necessity than they did.) Because of the climate, six months out of the year the public square is uninhabitable; your muted tongues cannot make themselves understood in the open air; you pay more attention to your profits than to your liberty; and you are less fearful of slavery than you are misery. What! can liberty be maintained only with the support of servitude? Perhaps. The two extremes meet. Everything that is not in nature has its drawbacks, and civil society more so than all the rest. There are some unfortunate circumstances where one’s liberty can be preserved only at the expense of someone else’s, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only if the slave is completely enslaved. Such was the situation in Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you do not have slaves, but you yourselves are slaves. You pay for their liberty with your own. It is in vain that you crow about that preference. In find more cowardice in it than humanity. I do not mean by all this that having slaves is necessary, nor that the right of slavery is legitime, for I have proved the contrary. I am mere stating the reason why modern peoples who believe themselves to be free have representatives, and why ancient peoples did not have them. Be that as it may, the moment a people gives itself representatives, it is no longer free; it no longer exists. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

With the Third Wave on its way out, the age of information, perhaps the Fourth Wave will be the age of slavery. The public started by destroying and removing their statues, which were part of history. They teach important lesson. Patriots are becoming rare and being shamed. The nation does not protect its boarders and disallows law enforcement to work together, which puts national security and public safety at risk. Tyrants locked you in your homes, make you wear pampers on your face and forced medication on you. Next, the American people will be so offended by knowledge that the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden will be confiscated and/or destroyed. And people with sit in their tiny, low budget, low-rise, mid-level rise, and high-rise apartments (which should be red tagged and condemned because of code violations such as leaking pipes, asbestos growing mold, roach, rat and demon infestations, thick foul stenches assaulting the hallways) because real estate has become so expensive. Instead of working, they will be eating government rationed food, spending all day watching television, or smoke dope and have seances. They will not be able to go outside without permission or a valid doctor’s note. All things considered, I do not see that it is possible henceforth for the sovereign to preserve among us the exercise of its rights, unless the city is very small. However, if it is very small, will it be subjugated? When it comes to “Youth Problems,” one can make little distinction in value between talking about middle-class youths being groomed for one to three hundred-thousand-dollar “slots” in business and Madison Avenue, or underprivileged hoodlums fatalistically hurrying to a reformatory; or between hard-working young fathers and Hipsters with beards, McMansions and chicken farms. For the salient things is the sameness among them, the waste of humanity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

In our society, bright lively children, with the potentiality for knowledge, noble ideals, honest effort, and some kind of worthwhile achievement, are transformed into useless and cynical bipeds, or decent young men trapped or early resigned, whether in or out of the organized system. It is desperately hard these days for an average child to grow up to be a man, for our present organized system of society does not want men. They are not safe. They do not suit. Our public officials are now much more concerned about the “waste of human resources.” One of my favourite professors and former President of Harvard, Dr. Conant taught me a lot about the Mayflower, which was a ship his maternal family came to America on. As his paternal family was involved in the founding of Salem, Massachusetts, which was home of the witch trials, we also spent countless hours discussing the subject. Anyway, Dr. Conant surveyed high schools. He was always looking for students who showed promise. The ones who were exposed to the more advanced texts and techniques. Those who stressed about college entrance exams. The students at the top of their class, the ones who were scholarship worthy, and participated in clubs. However, he could not find too many serious students, and some considered his reports superficial because they avoided “the real issues” on the part of our public officials, which many think is one of the big causes for failures in student success. It seems our leaders are setting our youth up to be slaves, which is why they do not care about their futures. However, our society cannot have it both ways: to maintain a conformist and ignoble system and to have skillful and spirited humans to man that system. A better World requires no deep wisdom or astonishing imagination to know what we need. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

The prevalent sentiment that it is infinitely impractical to follow the suggestions of common reason, is not sound. If it is impractical, it is because some people do not want to, and the rest of us do not want to enough. For instance, there is a persistent presumption among our liberal statesmen that the old radical-liberal program has been importantly achieved, and that therefore there is no familiar major proposal practical to remedy admittedly crying ills. This is a false presumption. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the radical-liberal program was continually compromised, curtailed, sometimes realized in form without content, sometimes swept under the rug and heard of no more. This has occurred, and keeps occurring, by the mutual accommodation of both “liberals” and “conservatives” in the interests of creating our present coalition of semimonopolies, trade unions, government, Madison Avenue, et cetera (including a large bloc of outlaw gangsters); thriving on maximum profits and full employment; but without regard for utility, quality, rational productivity, personal freedom, independent enterprise, human scale, manly vocation, or genuine culture. It is in this accommodation that our politicians survive, but it does not make for statesmanship. We have only had three reputable statemen in ninety years, two of them died seventy years ago. Agree or disagree, we have been living in political limbo and with voodoo economics when it comes to the economy. Naturally this unnatural system has generated its own troubles, whether we think of the unlivable communities, the collapse of public ethics, or the problems of the youth. These ills are by no means inherent in modern technological or ecological condition, nor in the American Constitution as such. However, they have followed precisely from the betrayal and neglect of the old radical-liberal program and other changes proposed to keep up with the advancing technology, the growth of population, and the revolution in morals. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

When they were ripe, important forms did not occur, and we have inherited the consequences: a wilderness of unfinished situations, unequal developments and inconsistent standards, as well as new business. And now, sometimes the remedy must be stoically to go back and carry through the old programs (as we are having to do with racial, gender, and immigration status integration), exempli gratia, finally to insist on stringent master-planning of cities and conserving of resources, or on really limiting monopolies. Sometimes we must make changes to catch up—exempli gratia, to make the laws more consistent with the cultural revolution, or to make the expenditure on public goods more commensurate with the geometrically increasing complications of a more crowded population. And sometimes, finally, we have to invent really new devices—exempli gratia, how to make the industrial technology humanly important for its workers, how to use leisure nobly, or even how, in a rich society, to be decently poor if one so chooses. For it is impossible for the average boy to grow up and use the remarkable capacities that are in every boy, unless the World is for him and makes sense. And when it understands that its chief wealth is these capacities, a society makes sense. Most people eventually detach themselves to some degree, both emotionally and physically, from their families of origin. In so doing, people shift their focus from relationships with parents and siblings to relationships with a partner and children. These relationships in the family of orientation consume substantial physical and mental energy. Furthermore, whereas in family-of-origin relations there is a natural progression toward some degree of independence, marriage and parenting are relationships that are pledged for life (at least in principle). Consequently, these relationships have a powerful impact on psychological well-being, and the psychological well-being or illness of an individual in such a family context has a powerful impact on these family relations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

There is an exceptionally robust relationship between mental health problems and marital distress. This interpersonal problem can be found among those with depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, alcoholism and other substance use disorders, and psychogenic sexual dysfunctions. It is extremely difficult to locate an individual whose spouse has major depression or alcoholism, but who otherwise feels that the two of them have a great marriage. Marital distress would presumably be problematic for many people with social anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, or personality disorders, were they actually able to initiate and maintain marriages. Scientists and philosophers alike might debate which is the more intimate human bond: parent and child, or husband and wife. A parent-child relationships is one of blood; yet a marriage is a relationship of sustained intimacy until death, at least in theory. When a marriage goes bad, mental health can suffer as a result. In this regard, marital distress may act as a stressor that triggers symptoms of psychopathology. A failing marriage can raise questions of blame, faltered responsibility, self-doubt, feelings of personal failure, and uncertainty about the present and future. The catastrophic and dysphoric feelings that accompany marital distress can exhaust the strongest of egos. In many such cases, psychopathology could be interpreted as a result of marital distress. An alternative account of the relationship between marital distress and psychopathology sees the deterioration of marriage as affected by symptoms of psychological disorder. To state the case plainly, how enjoyable is marriage to a depressed person? What marriage is strong enough to tolerate and absorb the radical shifts in mood and behaviour associated with bipolar disorder? How fulfilling can a marriage be to a wife who is starving herself to death and eschewing pleasures of the flesh, or to a husband drinking himself to death and generally incoherent or belligerent? These symptoms are a burden that even the best marriages often cannot bear. When the mental health of one member depreciates, a union between two people that is this close is inevitably upset. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

Psychological disorders also appear to generate parenting problems. If any, there are few interpersonal tasks that require as much energy, effort, and skills as raising children. Effective parenting requires undivided attention and emotional resilience. When a parent’s mental balance is tipped by problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, or alcoholism, the possibility for effective parenting declines considerably. For this reason, people with mental health problems often raise children with behavioural or psychological problems of their own. Fortunately, many factors that moderate the relationship between parental mental health and child distress can render a child resilient to the ill effects of troubled parenting. Some consideration should be granted to the possibility (although it is somewhat speculative at this time) that children’s behavioural problems may trigger symptoms of psychopathology in parents. Mental health problems are sensitive to a variety of interpersonal contacts, including those with relative strangers. It is reasonable to assume that a child with conduct, attention, emotional, or behavioural problems may stress a parent, perhaps leading to depression when this “failure” at parenting is internalized, or to alcoholism as a means of coping and escape. Some interpersonal phenomena, such as conflict, EE (expressive emotions), negative AS (affective style), and the provision of a “solution” to a system problem, appear in both family-of-origin and family-of-orientation contexts. Though many scientists often conceptualize and test fairly linear cause—effect relations in these context (exempli gratia, family conflict leads to depression, bipolar disorder leads to marital distress), family systems theorists see cause and effect in all members of a system. For example, a key assumption is that regardless of how problems originate, they persist as aspects of current, ongoing interactions systems. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

Cybernetic feedback processes provide a framework for understanding how systems are maintained, which is of greater interests than etiological hypotheses, or linear (historical) notions of cause and effect. It is further assumed that problems occur not so much within people are between them—that psychological “symptoms” and interaction systems are inextricably interwoven. Thus, from a systems perspective, neither the effect of psychopathology on the family nor the effect of the family on psychopathology is a primary focus. Rather, the concern is with the way in which all members of the system maintain the psychological problem. In many situations the psychological problem is functional in some way for the family. Families that structure their lives around alcoholism or eating disorders are collectively maintaining the psychological problem. Therefore, the problem is clearly not an individual problem, but a system problem. And sometimes maybe even your loud dog is having a psychological problem that needs to be addressed. The popularity of Prozac and related antidepressant drugs skyrocketed in the 1990s. Many clinicians believe that Prozac is being prescribed much too often. They worry in particular about its se with children, elderly people, and people whose psychological problems are relatively minor. However, I wonder if more people took Prozac, would they stop using marijuana because often times people “have to smoke marijuana to stay calm.” It is not just for pain and entertainment. Nonetheless, clinicians have been given something else to worry about when it comes to Prozac. Prozac is also being described to dogs with mood and behavioural problems. Dr. Peter Neville, an expert on animal behaviour, described dogs given Prozac. Jannie, a pointer with a shadow-chasing problem, was prescribed the drug for an obsessive-compulsive disorder. George, a Staffordshire bull terrier, was given it to combat “sustained rage assaults” on other dogs. And Henry, an English bull terrier, kept pinning his owner every time she tired to leave home. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

At first glance, there may seem to be something odd or wrong about human beings serving as testing ground for medication that is later given to animals. However, the animal doctors who proscribe Prozac argue that it would be wrong to withhold a helpful treatment from pets simply because such applications initially make us uncomfortable. After all, they assert, if Prozac does help produce beneficial feelings and better behaviours in these troubled dogs, it can make an enormous difference for both the patients and their family members, just as it does in many cases of human depression. Should ever any scheme of things acquire absolute authority it would exclude from awareness anything beyond its limits. Nothing then could content with it and no change could occur. It and the society it organized would be static and immortal. Each individual by allegiance to that scheme would share in that immortality. The dread of death would be overcome. No scheme of things has ever achieved such authority, though some schemes have endured for millennia. Change is unstoppable; for no scheme of things has ever convinced everyone. All schemes involve limitation and denial. They are humanmade. They reach out into the way things are, the realm of the existing, and make order. Then claim to be eternal. A scheme of things is a plan for salvation. How well, it works will depend upon its scope and authority. If it is small, even great achievement in its service will do little to dispel death. We seek the largest possible scheme, not in hunger for truth, but in hunger for meaning. The more comprehensive the scheme, the greater its promise of banishing dread. If we can more our lives mean something in a cosmic scheme we will live in the certainty of immortality. The very great success of Christianity for a thousand years follows upon its having been of universal scope, including and accounting for everything, assigning to all things a proper place; offering to every human, whether prince or beggar, savant or fool, the privilege of working in the Lord’s vineyard; and upon its being accepted as true throughout the Western World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

Beguinage’s were groups of women who dedicated themselves to chastity and poverty, pooled their possession, and formed spiritual or residential communes. Often they lived together, but some continued to live at home with their families. Beguines chose to be eternally celibate rather than vow eternal celibacy. The Albigensians (Beguinage’s were suspected of having the same origin sometime in the twelfth century) taught that marriage and pleasures of the flesh prevented salvation and that parents, who had by definition already fornicated, were domed souls. Albigensianism must have influenced at least some women to look elsewhere than unlikely marriage for a satisfying life. In fact, many women needed no prodding to consider abstaining from marriage. Living, as most did, in cramped quarters with no privacy from their families, they observed their parents’ marriages firsthand and understood well what lay in store for them. Centuries earlier, Ambrose had discouraged women from abandoning their virginal state with his succinct reminder of what marriage would bring: “Pregnancy, the crying of infants, the torture caused by rival, the cares of household management.” Women who married were often the most melancholy mourners of the virginity they had surrendered and the most fervent advocates for the celibacy that would restore a modicum of serenity and control to their frenetic lives. Church officials could not believe such celibate free agents as the Beguines could manage to survive chastely in the wicked World and so they must be locked up. Furthermore, the private or informal vows of sexual purity they had previously sworn were now forbidden—they were directed to swear formal oaths. Then these formally avowed celibates had to be cloistered lest they face temptation, weaken, and default on their vows. In the tradition of the early Fathers, who wrote that “sin came from a woman, but salvation through a virgin,” these men revered virgins but hated women. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

In the sixteenth century, Angela Merici established a noncloistered women’s order, the Company of St. Ursula, the legendary British saint martyred, with her eleven thousand virgin companions, as she rode to her wedding. Angela’s choice of St. Ursula was significant; virginity was the cornerstone of her Company, and social work, teaching, and nursing its mission. Novices required their parent’s permission and had to be at least twelve, the minimum legal age for women to marry. Angela directed novices to preserve their virginity, which she considered an angelic quality. The Company of St. Ursula survived until 1810, its sisters grateful that the Church granted them permission to maintain their chastity in the World of their blood relatives, neighbours, and the struggling poor they were dedicated to serving. However, in general, because of the way Mary Ward was treated, a lesson all devout and celibate woman learned that was that if they were also independent, strong-minded, ambitions, and visionary, their virtue was suspect. While some believe there is freedom in having the charism of virginity, we also need to say something about how one arrives at that freedom, and about the price to be paid. In fact, one of the greatest dangers to guard against in this whole area is precisely the danger of delusion. After sin, sexuality is no longer a neutral reality which we can easily dominate. It has become ambiguous. The Christian Bible is familiar with this ambivalent, dramatic character of sexuality. It knows that passion is capable of dragging a person to ruin: “For love is strong as death”—we read in the Song of Songs—“passion as relentless as Sheol,” reports SG 8.6. The Old Testament is full of dismal stories in which individuals or entire cities appear as victims of the devastating power of sexual disorder. It is true that Jesus came to redeem humanity therefore also human sexuality. It is also true that “condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus,” reports Romans 8.1. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

However, redemption has not exempted human beings from concupiscence and the need for struggle. Certainly Jesus redeems and saves human sexuality, but He redeems and saves it as He does with everything else, through the cross, in other words, by calling us to share His struggle, so what we can later share His victory. When Israel entered into possession of the Promised Land, it is written that “the Lord allowed these nations to remain; He did not hurry to drive them out, and did not deliver them into the hands of Joshua,” reports Jg. 2.23. The Lord did subject to Israel the nations who occupied the land of Canaan, but not all of the, and not all at once. He allowed some to remain, in order to put Israel to the test by their means, and to teach Israel the art of war. He has done the same with us in Baptism. He has not taken away all our enemies, our temptations; some, our appetites, He has left with us, so that we would learn to fight and to hope in Him, and experience our weakness. Christ, then, did not eliminate the concupiscence of the flesh in us, but He has given us the means not to give in to it. The first and most common means available to us to preserve and increase virginity of the heart is mortification. St. Paul assures us: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live,” reports Romans 8.13. This is spiritual mortification, where “spiritual” does not mean an internal type of mortification, as opposed to an external, bodily one, but mortification that is both external and internal, practiced with the help of the Holy Spirit. In short, a type of mortification that is not itself a work of the “flesh,” but of faith. For a soul tht wants to be the spouse of Christ, mortification is necessary, just as, in the case of a human love, it is necessary to learn the language of the beloved. “Consider,” writers the philosopher we have already mentioned, who remained celibate for love of the divine majesty, “a purely human situation. If a lover is unable to speak the language of the beloved, then he or she must learn the other’s language, however difficult it may be. Otherwise their relationship could never be a happy one; they would never be able to converse with each other. So it is with mortifying oneself in order to love God. God is spirit: only a mortified person can in some way speak His language. If you do not want to mortify yourself, then you cannot love God either. What you are speaking is something quite different.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

Some first-century Christians were struggling to survive in the Greek town of Corinth. The Bible says, “The people were in deep poverty and deep trouble,” reports 2 Corinthians 8.2. What did they do in their time of need? Did they complain and pout? Did they say, “God, why do we have so much trouble coming against us?” Not at all. The Scripture records, “In the midst of their great trouble, they stayed full of joy and they gave generously to others.” Notice they sowed a seed in their time of need. They knew if they would help to meet other people’s needs, God would meet theirs. In your times of difficulty, do just what they did. Number one, stay full of joy. Number two, go out and sow a seed. Help someone else, and you will be helped. The Bible says, “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later. Divide your gifts among many, for in the days ahead you yourself may need much help,” reports Ecclesiastes 11.1-2. Notice, God is giving us a principle here that will cause us to have our needs supplied during those tough times that occasionally comes. Give generously right now, because in the future you may need some help. God is keeping a record of every good deed you have ever done. He is keeping a record of every seed you have ever sown. And in your time of need, He will make sure that somebody is there to help you. Your generous gifts will come back to you. God has seen every smile you have ever given to a hurting person. He has observed every time you went out of the way to lend a helping hand. God has witnessed when you have given sacrificially, giving even money that perhaps you needed desperately for yourself or your family. God is keeping those records. Some people will tell you that it does not make any different whether you gibe or not, or that it does not do any good. However, do not listen to those lies. God has promised that your generous gifts will come back to you. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

Put some action behind your prayers. If you are believing for a promotion at work, do not just say, “God, I am counting on you.” Certainly, you should pray, but do more than pray. God out and help your family, or do something to get some seed in the ground that God can bless. Your gifts will go up as a memorial before God. Perhaps you are hoping to buy a new Cresleigh Home or get out of debt. So a special seed that relates to your specific need. We cannot buy God’s goodness, but we can exercise our faith through our giving. The Scripture says, “When we give, God is able to make it all up to us by giving us everything we need and more so there will be not only enough for our needs, but we will have plenty left over so that we can give to others,” reports 2 Corinthians 9.8. God has promised us that when we give, He will give back to us. Sow a special offering. So something out of the ordinary as an expression of your faith. If you will do that, God will pour out His favour in a new way. If you want to live a successful life now, do not hoard what God has given you. Learn to sow it in faith. Remember, when you give, you are preparing the way for God to meet your needs today and in the future. The luminous understand of cosmic truths given one by this experience has still to be connected to, and brought into relation with, one’s everyday human character. What one feels in these beautiful minutes is really a far-off echo from a higher, diviner World. The echo wanes and vanishes but its origin does not. One day, soon or late, one may pick it up again and this time learn of the greatness secreted within one. No glimpse is wasted, even if it does pass away. For not only does it leave a memory to stir comfort guide, inspire, or mediate upon, but it also leaves a beneficial advance forward. Each glimpse is to be regarded as a step taken in the direction of the goal, or as a stage in the process of work needed to be done on oneself, or as a further cleanings of the accretions impurities animalities and egoisms which hide the true Self. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

If one’s own work is fully and faithfully done, the time comes when the power to prolong a glimpse is at the disciple’s command. One is then able not only to bring it on at will but also to extend its length at will. The higher awareness falls like pollen for a few short hours, perhaps, only to be blown away for long years. Yet this intervening period need not be wasted. It should be used to cut down the obstructions in one’s character and to fill up the deficiencies in one’s equipment. This done, one will grow more and more into one’s spiritual selfhood with every return to temporary awareness of it. When it comes to the faith of Sacrament, though, some are gravely tempted; at first blush, that would seem to be their fault, but act, at second blush, it is the Enemy’s. My suggestion? Do just the opposite of what the Devil suggests. That is to say, try to hold your water, but do not try to make sense out of commandments the Devil has turned into conundrums. Just believe in the words of God. Put your belief in His Saints and Prophets, and the Vociferous Enemy will throw up his hands in despair; the same sort of advice is found in the Letter of James (4.7). Often when one has to bear up under such affronts, there is some small consolations, perhaps even a compliment. That is to say, the Devil does not spend must of his precious time trying the virtue of Infidels and Sinners; these poor blokes he can have served up to him anytime he wants. It is always the Faithfull that are the delicacies at his dinners. Continue your intellectual journey, My Friend, with simple and undoubting faith, and receive the Sacrament with the reverence of a suppliant. When your intellectual capacity reaches its natural limits, remember God’s knowledge knows no bounds. When intellectual failure does happen—and it happens more frequently than Humankind likes to admit—know that God is not the cause. You are the cause because you put your faith in yourself. Which is a roundabout way of saying the person who believes in oneself has a fool for a god. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

Release your faith in words. Even though God desires to answer the prayers and meet the needs of every individual, someone has to request it in this Earth either by saying it or praying it. He already knows the problem or the need before you ask, but it seems as though God cannot move until someone on Earth has requested it. He has given the authority of this Earth to humankind, and He cannot violate His Word. “The Heaven, even the Heavens, are the Lord’s: but the Earth hath He given to the children of men,” reports Psalms 115.16. This passage of scripture agrees with Jesus’ words in Matthew 16.19, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven,” and also in Mark 11.24, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” God cannot violate His Word. It seems as though He does not come in the Earth to destroy the works of the devil unless someone on the Earth uses their authority by requesting or demanding it in the name of Jesus. The authority of the Earth has been given to man. In Galatians 3.13 you can see that you are redeemed from the curse of the Law, which includes poverty, sickness, and spiritual death. Here again, someone must enforce it. You must demand your rights in Jesus’s name. You have legal authority in this Earth through that name. In Mark 16.17-18, Jesus said, “These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Jesus has given us the power of attorney to use His name and that name is above every name. (Phil. 2.9-10). To change fear into perfect loving requires a clear definition of grace. Perhaps the most profound type of core experience comes in what it means to be “struck by grace.” By grace we mean the gift of God that we are loved and accepted without effort on our part. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

Grace is often referred to as unmerited love from God. Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It happens; or it does not happen. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we talk through the dark value of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel our separation is deeper than usual. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, or hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after years, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear. At that moment it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted,” accepted by that which is greater than you. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. However, everything is transformed. It is through grace, the in-flowing of God’s love, that we become able to love our neighbour from the great reservoir of God-given love within. Dear Lord in Heaven, I want to do something out of the ordinary in the realm of giving, something that will expand my faith, and cause me to know that when the answer comes, it is directly attributable to You and Your blessings on my willingness to give. God, you are all things graciously. You are the mystery unfolding cosmos and humanity. You are my homeland, my most original ground. Your Presence welds all things together. You are the caring love that carries me like Mother Earth does forest, flower, and tree. Your Presence alone is lasting home. Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing though night and day—and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet in our minds so be it. Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light-changing leaf and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain in our minds so be it. Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent Owl at dawn. Breath of our song clear spirit breeze in our minds so it be. Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets, freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk; self-complete, brave, and aware in our minds so be it. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers; holding or releasing; streaming through all our bodies salty seas in our minds so be it. Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where bears and snakes sleep—one who wakes us—in our minds so be it. Gratitude to the Great Sky who holds billions of stars—and goes yet beyond that—beyond all powers, and thoughts and yet is within us—Grandfather Space. The Mind is his Wife so be it. As for slanderers, may their hopes come to naught, and may all wickedness perish. May all Thine enemies be destroyed. Do Thou uproot the dominion of arrogance; crush it and subdue it in our day. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who breakest the power of the enemy and bringest low the arrogant. May Thy tender mercies, O Lord our God, be stirred towards the righteous and the pious, towards the leaders of Thy people America, towards all the scholars that have survived, toward the righteous proselytes and toward us. Grant Thy favour unto all who faithfully trust in Thee, and may our portion ever be with them. May we never suffer humiliation for in Thee do we put our trust. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who are the staff and trust of the righteous. The throne and dynasty of David are historic symbols of righteous government and the restoration of American’s home land. Please return in mercy to America, Thy city, and dwell Thou therein as Thou hast promised. Please rebuild it in our own day as an enduring habitation, and speedily set up therein the throne of David. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who rebuildest America. Cause the Dynast of American soon to flourish and may it be exalted through Thy saving power, for we daily await Thy deliverance. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who causest salvation to come fourth. Please hear our voice, O Lord our God, have compassion upon us and receive our prayers in loving favour for Thou, O God, hearkenest unto prayers and supplications. Please turn us not from Thy presence without Thy blessing, O our King, for Thou hearest the prayers of Thy people America with compassion. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hearkenest unto prayer. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

Cresleigh Homes

We’ll enjoy the outdoor dining experience as long as we can! 🌳 Celebrating a patio big enough for a crowd in our #MillsStation home.

And psst…the best kept secret of Mills Stations homes? Each home comes with owned solar included! 🌞

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and dreams of the new Cresleigh Home you want, really do come true.

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